Arbitration/Mediation

What is arbitration?

Arbitration is an adjudicative dispute resolution in which a decision maker issues a ruling. In an arbitration, disputants do not haggle back and forth to craft a settlement, as they do in a negotiated process such as mediation. Parties are usually represented by counsel who argue their cases before a single arbitrator, or a panel of three arbitrators, and the arbitrator adjudicates, or judges, the matter based on the evidence. Thus, unlike participants in a mediation, who design their own settlement with the help of the neutral mediator, participants in an arbitration yield control of the outcome to the neutral arbitrator.

What is Mediation?

Mediation is “negotiation through an intermediary”. Two or more parties meet with a neutral third party, who guides the negotiation process, advising and listening to all sides, and helps the parties arrive at a win-win settlement. A mediated settlement is non-binding. If any party in the dispute is unhappy with the outcome, that party may opt out of signing a settlement agreement and proceed to arbitration or litigation.

Mediation is now one of the fastest-growing forms of dispute resolution because: